The present invention relates in general to multi-port diverter valves for directing a liquid, typically water, from a mixing valve to one or more of a plurality of selectable outlets. The outlets are associated with various hydraulic devices, such as a hand wand, a showerhead, and a body sprayer. More specifically, the present invention relates to the modification of such a multi-port diverter valve to include an integral detent structure and the elimination of a more costly spring-loaded stainless steel ball that is used to provide a detent feature.
A diverter valve is typically designed to be assembled between a flow control device or a valve such as a mixing faucet and one or more other hydraulic devices. One common example of a diverter valve is the use of a mixing valve for a shower and tub combination. The mixing valve provides proportional quantities of hot and cold liquids, typically water. The typical style of diverter valve is actuated in order to provide fluid to one or more selected hydraulic devices such as a bath tub spout, showerhead or hand-held wand. Diverter valves commonly have a valve cartridge that is rotatable about a longitudinal axis in order to provide selective fluid communication between an inlet and one (or more) of several outlets.
While early diverter valves were typically designed to enable selection of one of two outlets and thus flow diversion to one of two hydraulic devices, such as the faucet or showerhead, it is becoming increasingly common to increase the number of showerheads or other hydraulic devices available to use within a shower. Typically, if more than one hydraulic device is installed, separate on/off valves are required in order to control the flow of fluid to each hydraulic device. It is known to install multiple showerheads within a shower to provide multiple streams of continuous and directed water flow. In such assemblies, multiple valves are required in order to selectively engage or disengage water flow through specific showerheads. Installation of such valves increases cost, complexity, and installation time. The added expense is a barrier to installing multiple showerheads in those applications where cost is of concern. To this end, multi-port diverter valve assemblies have been designed that are capable of directing fluid from an inlet to a plurality of hydraulic device outlets in various combinations.
In the design of diverter valve assemblies with multiple ports, an inner diverter component or cartridge is constructed and arranged to rotate within an outer sleeve or cap. The inner diverter cartridge includes upper and lower cartridge portions that define an interior chamber. The lower cartridge portion includes flow openings that rotate into position over flow apertures in the valve body for selecting one or more of the available hydraulic devices or a combination thereof and directing fluid to the selected hydraulic device or devices.
When a diverter valve assembly is constructed and arranged so as to be capable of being rotated into a plurality of functional positions, it is preferable to provide a positive indication to the user when indexing from one flow condition or selection to another flow condition or selection. This “positive indication” can be provided by means of a tactile feel or by means of an audible “click”, or by both, as either or both would alert the operator or user that a new diverter valve position has been selected by rotation of the cartridge by means of a knob or handle.
One earlier design of this style of diverter valve assembly uses a spring-loaded stainless steel ball in order to provide a ball detent that provides the positive indication. In this design, a blind bore is machined into the receiving valve body and the rotatable diverter valve cartridge is configured with cooperating part-spherical pockets or recesses, one such recess for each diverter valve position (i.e., for each detent position). When the diverter valve is rotated into one of the plurality of detent positions, the stainless steel ball that was previously seated in the blind bore is spring biased in an upward direction and the upper portion of the ball is received by the corresponding part-spherical recess in order to create a ball detent combination denoting the particular selected position.
Since the part-spherical portion of the ball that rides out of the blind bore into the recess is dimensionally less than the radius of the ball, continued rotation of the diverter valve cartridge merely pushes the ball down into the blind bore, compressing the spring, until the next recess is reached, then allowing the spring to push the ball back up into the next recess for the next detent position. While this type of ball detent structure provides the tactile feel and may provide an audible “click”, it does represent a somewhat expensive addition to the diverter valve assembly. Accordingly, it would be an improvement to diverter valve assemblies of this style with the described detent feature to be able to replace the stainless steel ball and spring with a less expensive detent structure. Additionally, diverter valve assemblies of the type to be described herein are constructed and arranged so as to permit an “all-on” condition where the diverter valve assembly enables fluid flow to all of the remote hydraulic devices. In order to achieve this configuration, the diverter valve cartridge is raised axially. With the earlier designs, this axial movement disengages the spring/ball detent and would permit rotation of the cartridge. With the present invention, since the detent feature is integral relative to the cartridge and cap combination, raising this combination does not eliminate the detent engagement and thereby provides an anti-rotation feature.